


Pride

by Delphicoracle_Cat



Category: Starlight Express - Phillips/Stilgoe/Webber
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Medical Emergency, liberties taken with medical procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 13:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11314170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphicoracle_Cat/pseuds/Delphicoracle_Cat
Summary: No one knew that Electra’s chest display wasn’t just for show. And no one knew that the reason he had his own repair truck was because, as someone once joked, he was ‘unreliable’.





	Pride

Wrench’s eyes were on Electra. 

All eyes were on Electra. The electric engine always drew a crowd even when he wasn’t racing. And when he did participate in a race—even if it was only the qualifier—the crowd grew especially vocal and admiring. It didn’t even matter to his adoring crowd if he won or lost (though it certainly mattered to Electra). They just loved watching him. The beautiful, stylish, dazzling engine of the future. 

Wrench understood that. He was a beautiful engine, he worked hard to keep his plating clean and dazzling, his inner parts in good working order, though the latter responsibility fell to Wrench, and she took her job quite seriously.

Which was why she carefully followed Electra as he zoomed down the track, with Volta coupled behind him. 

They made a good-looking racing pair. They would most likely win, once Electra secured a spot in the qualifier. Wrench wasn’t worried about that. If anything, she wished Electra would lose a little more often. It would make her job easier. 

The race was nothing major, a small affair north of the border that had caught Electra’s attention. He needed to get his head back into the racing game after that spectacular loss to that despicable little steam engine. The Components dutifully followed, some more eager than others (Joule at least was thrilled to speak the local language). Volta was excited to race with their master again. Wrench had hoped that Electra would take a break from racing after that last defeat, and maybe focus on working hard, pulling trains, avoiding the stress of racing. 

Of course if Electra did that, and listened to Wrench when she said he needed to stop for a bit and rest, he wouldn’t exactly be Electra. 

And so Wrench resigned herself to following the race, Purse at her side, while Krupp and Joule followed the action on the other side of the racetrack. She tried her best to keep an eye on Electra, wishing not for the first time that she’d installed a larger chest display. It was difficult to get a good look at it with so much motion. 

“C’est Electra qui mène, et on commence maintenant le dernier tour de circuit!”

Electra and Volta were in the lead. Unsurprisingly, no other engine was even near them. They were doing well. A green and chrome engine managed to briefly catch up, only to pull back as a flurry of sparks erupted from Electra’s pantograph. 

“What’s he doing?” Purse asked. Electra was no stranger to intimidating his competitors, but he didn’t seem to be zapping with any intent. 

Wrench growled, wishing again she could get a better look. “Trying to do my job for me.”

She rolled to the end of the track as the final lap came to a close. For once she was thankful for Electra’s speed, as it wasn’t long before he and Volta appeared again, leading the pack and crossing the finish line with a flourish. 

“C’est Electra, la locomotive électrique en première place, et Axle en deuxième place! Electra et Axle participeront à la course finale! Soyez des nôtres pour la grande Course de Montréal!”

Wrench tuned out the announcer. The results didn’t interest her. Electra rolled around the crowd assembled by the finish line, grinning and basking in the post-race admiration, and Volta locked eyes with Wrench as Electra brought them around, disconnecting her before rolling away to find a few doting fans. 

“He’s breathing hard,” Volta said as she came to a stop. 

Wrench tightened her mouth. “I knew it.”

She was on him in a moment, before he could work on his escape into the throng of engines and coaches. 

“Electra, stop.”

He did, which surprised her. He also swayed on his wheels a bit as he came to a full stop, which did not surprise her either, but did worry her. As she approached him, she could hear the rapid beeps from his chest display coupled with the loud whirr of his cooling fans as he panted. 

“Wrench, if you think I have time for--”

“Shut it.” 

“I’m fine.”

“Why you insist on acting like a trainlet about this, I’ll never know,” Wrench sighed. He was out of breath in a way that had nothing to do with the race he’d just run and it was clear he wasn’t well. An untrained eye wouldn’t have known, since even a sickly Electra still looked gorgeous and perfect. But to Wrench’s eye he did not look good. 

She shushed his next protest and listened to the blips on the monitor embedded in his chest. The erratic blips were nothing new. Not serious, but still not something she liked to see. Sighing, she began to uncover the contacts on either side of his chest before he nervously stopped her. “Electra, I need to fix this.”

Electra’s eyes darted from her to the crowd and back again. He was still heaving for breath. “Not here.”

His damn pride was going to be the death of him. Literally. Wrench sighed. She wasn’t about to waste hours finding a cozy little room to administer treatment, so she quickly activated the biphasic defibrillators in her palms, plastered on her sultriest look, and pushed him into the wall of the nearest shed. 

Now any onlookers would only see the dazzling Electra, winner of his qualifying heat, locked in an amorous embrace with one of his Components. It wouldn’t arouse suspicion; it was obvious from the moment Electra and the Components walked into the yard that the beautiful electric and his beautiful entourage were not platonic. 

She brought her face in close, faking a kiss as she said, “I saw what you were doing with the catenary. You can’t shock yourself back into normal rhythm, Electra. I’ve explained this to you before.” 

He flashed her a winning smile, wrapping his hands around her waist. Normally she would enjoy this, taking a little one-on-one time with Electra, enjoying the attention and the feel of his body against hers, but desire always vanished when she needed to focus on his health. She was his repair truck first, and his groupie second. She pressed her hands to his chest, lining up the contacts and adjusting the voltage.

“It’ll be fine. It’s always fine.”

“It’s ‘always fine’ because I’m always here to make sure you don’t drop dead. Now listen, your arrhythmia’s been acting up lately and until I can make sure I can get it under control, you need to stop and rest.”

“I just qualified for the final!”

“You always do. There’ll be other races.”

“I want to win this one.”

“Get ready,” she quickly said, and delivered a jolt from her palms to his chest. A spasm shook his body from head to wheels and he hid his moan by burying his face in her neck. 

Wrench slid her fingers into his tall glittering hair, soothing him, letting him catch his breath against her neck. She focused on the sound of the blips and, satisfied that they were regular once more, relaxed against his body. 

“You don’t even speak the language here,” Wrench said, as though that were somehow an argument that would sway him. 

“Joule does,” Electra said. His voice was reedy but he was recovering quickly. “All I need to hear is my name and listen to the cheers. That’s universal.”

She pulled Electra’s head from her neck and gave him a dry look. “You know what else is universal?” She tapped his chest box, which now displayed a normal, regular rhythm. “I didn’t install this thing to make you look pretty.”

“And yet it does,” Electra grinned. “The coaches find it downright fabulous. Can’t keep their hands off it. Engines usually take it as a challenge. Greaseball liked to see the lines go fast.”

“I’m glad he found your arrhythmia so alluring.”

“He didn’t know--”

“I know he didn’t. I’m surprised he didn’t trigger an episode, the way you two were going at it. Listen, Electra, we wouldn’t need to keep doing this if you’d just let me install a device that--”

“No. No surgery.”

He’d only tolerated the monitor because she’d made it look cool and flashy, like the rest of him. No one clued in that it had an actual function instead of just being another pretty part of Electra’s armour. Anything more invasive, anything that might leave a not-so-flashy mark on his plating, was off-limits. Anything that might reveal to the world that Electra, the engine of the future, had a fatal design flaw. 

A design flaw he was too proud to admit. A glitch in his otherwise-perfect internal structure and electrical system. A flaw that made Wrench’s eyes drift down to the display in Electra’s chest whenever he was in sight, that made her unconsciously count the beats and look for any variation in the rhythm. 

He lived with the fear that he could drop dead at any moment. It was almost as bad as the fear that no one, no coach or engine or train yard, would want an engine with a design flaw. An unreliable engine was no engine at all. 

Electra took Wrench’s hands, peeling her off his body. He looked better now, much steadier and no longer panting. “I am fine. And I am going to win this race. Is that clear, Wrench?”

“Let me make something clear,” Wrench said. She pulled her hands from his, closing the contacts on his chest. He scowled, but allowed her to finish her work. “I’m here with you because I’m the best, because you hired me to take care of you. So please remember one thing: I’m the only reason you’re alive. And if you’re not careful, I might decide I don’t want to stay around and watch you kill yourself.”

 

She’d overstepped. Electra’s eyes were impassive, unreadable, which almost concerned her as much as him losing his temper. After a few moments of quiet staring, of making Wrench wonder what was on his mind, he nudged her back on her wheels and out of his way, rolling off to find the crowd, and leaving Wrench to sullenly roll back towards the other Components.

“Is he all right?” Purse asked, wringing his hands. He looked so concerned. What was it about Electra that inspired so much devotion from them?

Wrench sighed, flexing her hands, staring down at the contacts of the defibrillators in her palms. “He’s fine for now,” she said sharply. Not that it mattered. She had a race to prepare for. 

***

“…. Cinq… quatre… trois… deux… un… ils sont partis!”

Volta had proposed refusing to race with Electra, but Wrench told her to go ahead and do it. Electra would still manage to find a coach or truck to race with him, so it was better to have a partner who could raise the alarm if something went wrong. Electra was Electra, and if he wanted to race, then by Starlight he was going to race and it was against doctor’s orders, so be it. 

Wrench rolled into position near the end of the track and followed Electra and Volta along the first lap. They were already in second place. Electra’s plating was dazzling today, he looked strong, and he was a contender. 

First lap. 

Wrench’s eyes were glued to the chest display, in as much as she could keep track of it between laps. It was difficult to see the lines from there, much less hear the blips of the monitor. She really needed to build a device that would remotely transmit the information directly to her. Scratch that: she needed to convince Electra to let her build and install such a device. 

Second lap. 

Pride was a failing. A failing that was as much hers as Electra’s. Electra could go months without a single incident and on the flip side, there were times when things just kept misfiring. Wrench could treat him well enough, but his pride refused to let her do anything more invasive. And her pride refused to let anything happen to him, even with the limited resources he allowed her.

Third lap. 

Sometimes, it seemed as though he was surprised he’d lived this long. He still acted as though every day could be his last. No wonder he insisted on running every race and living in excess. How could she stand there, having made a vow as a repair truck, and do the bare minimum to allow him to get up and go back to damaging his health? 

Final lap.

Maybe it was less pride and more foolishness. Or habit. Where would he be without her? Likely dead by now. Certainly not running races. Maybe that was the answer then. If she kept saving him, then of course he could keep endangering himself. Maybe he needed to make a go without her. 

Maybe she needed to—

Wrench’s head snapped up. Electra was in the lead, about to cross the finish line, but it wasn’t Electra who caught her eye: it was Volta, who gesticulated wildly. She was still coupled to Electra and the two were coming in quickly. Whatever was happening, Wrench didn’t need to be told twice. She tapped Joule’s arm and cocked her head so she, Purse and Krupp would follow, and rapidly rolled over to wait by the finish line. 

“Electra a gagné! Electra est le champion! Electra--”

She had to muscle her way through the crowd, shoving engines and trucks with complete disregard to reach the finishing area. Electra and Volta had come in at full speed and Volta was performing some frantic maneuvers to slow them down until she finally managed to tip them both over the track, landing them hard in the gravel ballast.

Volta scrambled to sit as Wrench approached, already activating her biphasic defibrillators. Electra was not moving.

“Wrench!” Volta cried as the repair truck threw herself to the ground, her hands on Electra’s body. “Something went wrong, he started shaking, I don’t know--”

Wrench rolled him onto his back. Purse knelt by Electra’s head, removing the racing helmet and holding his head steady, but Wrench only had eyes for the chest display, and for the rapid, frantic little spikes. “Damn it!”

She had seconds to act, if it wasn’t already too late. Electra’s body was limp, his plating dim and dull. He was out of it, his internal systems and cooling fans inactive, completely unresponsive as Purse cradled and stroked his head. 

Wrench uncovered the contacts on his chest, dimly aware that the crowd was gathering around them. “Joule, Krupp, keep everyone away. Break their axles if you have to. Purse, get away from him.”

“But--”

“Move.”

He did, lowering Electra’s lifeless head to the ground and scrambling closer to Volta, a look of pure terror on his face. 

Wrench wasted no time in lining up her palms with the exposed contacts, internally adjusting the voltage, and delivering a shock to Electra’s systems. His body twitched and his head lolled, and for a moment the rhythm in the chest display was normal before returning to the rapid spikes. 

“I warned you,” Wrench said, clenching her jaw and adjusting the voltage again. “I warned you, you idiot.”

Another jolt. The rhythm briefly gave her hope before bleeping frantically again. She adjusted the voltage again. Electra’s pride was his undoing, but Wrench’s pride was her master’s only salvation. She was the best at this sort of thing, and she’d be damned if an engine was going to die when she was in charge of repairing it. 

“You will not do this to me,” she hissed at him, digging her fingers into his plating as she prepared for the next shock. There was only so much voltage she could pour into him before there was nothing left to try. “You will not embarrass me in front of this giant crowd by dying on my watch, do you hear? Don’t make me fail you. Do you hear me, Electra?”

She shocked him. A spasm ran through his body, followed by an incoherent moan, and Wrench hardly dared to look away from the chest display as the frantic spikes disappeared and the regular rhythm returned. 

She waited for the frantic spikes to return. Seconds passed, and it was the sound of Purse crying in relief against Volta’s shoulder that snapped her out of it, coupled with the sight of Electra shifting on the ground, gulping in air. His cooling fans weakly kicked on. 

“… Electra?” Wrench patted his cheek, gently pried open one of his eyes, relieved to see the glow slowly returning to it. His hair had sagged in all the excitement. She pushed it from his face, brushing some of the gravel dust away from his plating as she did. 

“What…?” Electra rasped, opening his eyes. He raised a shaky hand, pressing it to his chest. He was probably going to be sore from the jolts. His eyes were weak and unfocused, but damn it, he was alive. 

“I told you,” Wrench whispered, still stroking his face. “I warned you. You didn’t listen to me.”

“I’m…”

“You won the race,” she added, as though it mattered at this point. It probably did matter to Electra. “And you’re alive. For now, anyway.” 

He didn’t react to the news. His hand left his chest, trembling as he reached for her. “Wrench… please don’t leave me.”

Wrench sat heavily in the gravel, exhausted now that the crisis was over, closing the contacts in her palms so she could take his hand. It felt cool against her fingers and she squeezed it, proud of her handiwork, proud to be here. 

“… I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
